Five years in Iraq; who pays price?--a GREAT article

[underpants]

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/opinion/columnists.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-03-19-0112.html

Five years ago today, we invaded Iraq for reasons that turned out to be as substantial as a vapor trail. Too often, the media were willing accomplices in the salesmanship of this sham.

Oh sure, there were skeptics -- I was one of them. But too often, the media agenda-setters could hardly have been more gullible as they perpetuated not only the bogus assertion about weapons of mass destruction, but the conflation of Saddam Hussein into Osama bin Laden and the idea that Iraq was somehow behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

The feel-good moment that was the takedown of Hussein's statue -- an event as stage-managed as the rescue of P.O.W. Jessica Lynch -- quickly faded to black as it became clear that our soldiers wouldn't be greeted with flowers and chocolate but improvised explosive devices.

The architects of the Iraq debacle -- a group that includes Rice, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney -- sold us an invasion based on fiction. Now they're poised to walk away and leave their mess for someone else to clean up.